VUB wants to evaluate professors in a new way in the fight against 'toxic leadership'

A translation of the part of the article addressing toxicity: "[...]

Second remarkable statement in the summer interview: the VUB is thinking aloud about a new personnel policy in the fight against transgressive behaviour. Last year, the university opened at least five files involving intolerable behavior. The most famous case is that of Elke Van Hoof, the 'burn-out prof' whose entire team resigned because of dissatisfaction with her 'toxic leadership'.

Danckaert does not comment on Van Hoof in the conversation with BRUZZ, but nevertheless points out that some “underestimate their impact on how they come across to younger employees”. That is why he also thinks “that not all transgressive behavior is by definition intentional. Sometimes it also happens from the ambition to strive for scientific excellence.”

To relieve that pressure and stress - a common complaint among academics - Danckaert wants to tinker with the financing method. “In the current model, someone receives funding based on the number of publications and projects. In the future, the VUB wants to assess these quantitative parameters more at group level, less at individual level. That way it becomes a collegial responsibility and a collegial process, where everyone thinks about their contribution to the whole.”

By being assessed as a group, with each member focusing on their strengths and potential weaknesses being absorbed by colleagues, the rector hopes to introduce a new leadership culture. To be clear: this is a thinking exercise at the VUB, no concrete decision yet. If Danckaert wants to succeed in his aim, he will mainly have to seek external support, from the government, from scientific funds and from companies and financing sectors."

End of translation.

Comments: From our experiences at the university, the goal of these pressured and stressed individuals is not scientific excellence but furthering their own career ahead of others', whether that undermines the scientific excellence of the project or not. They are, as the statement implies, hugely pressured by their superiors and in great competition with their peers; they are not blinded in the pursuit of scientific excellence. If this action does ever happen we are hopeful it will change the culture at the university in the long term. So far still only empty placation from the university, though, with such heavy caveats on whether these changes are possible in the first place.

Also, as always we would like to see something done about the seemingly overt and accepted culture of sexual harassment and sexualization of students at the VUB. This seems to get lumped into transgressive behaviour, which (purposefully?) erases/de-emphasizes the sexual nature of most of the harassment that happens at the university.

Unlike most universities, the VUB does not have a policy against professors dating their current students. Adding this to their regulations would be a simple step that would protect students' academic experience and achievements. As it is now, students have no protection from sexual predation from professors; there is literally no recourse because it is not against any regulations. Complainants against Dries Tys were repeatedly told that he did not break university policy and the students had probably misinterpreted or overreacted to the situation. They were put into in-person one-on-one mediation with Tys and asked if they were sure they hadn't misunderstood. This in regards to a man who had dated students in the past, married one of his students, and continued to date students afterwards. Obviously the complainants just misunderstood his excitement for scientific excellence, though, right?

The problem continues: the VUB has purposefully tied its hands behind its back when it comes to the safety of its students.

Overly emotional students or VUB’s culture?

“I have never seen so many professors make their students cry. And everyone acts like it’s normal. For me it is not normal.” -anonymous masters student at the VUB

I don't know if I can ask this here, but does anyone know what was up with the archaeology prof that was fired a few years ago? I only had two of his classes overall, so I never noticed any transgressive behaviour (only the transgressive behaviour of the main Art Sciences prof lol), but some classmates were suddenly told they needed to find a different promotor and then a few months later it was all over the papers that he was fired? I feel really bad bc I never noticed any of my classmates being uncomfortable, so I'm curious to know what exactly happened?

Thank you for reaching out! Sorry we aren't monitoring the messages very closely. More than a dozen students, both male and female, came forward with complaints of sexual harassment and intimidation by Prof. Dries Tys (some of the articles say 20 students). Some of the official complaints were made to the VUB over 10 years ago and the university repeatedly chose to ignore them. One article says Tys' behaviour had been known of for 20 years. This is not surprising or dubious, as staff and students at the VUB frequently "joke" about relations between professors and students--even the lol at the main Art Sciences teacher in the question--it's known. The reason something finally happened in 2020 was that one of his latest (and hopefully last) victims went to an outside organisation for help and support after being ignored and lied to by the university for over 6 months. During that time the student had to continue to work with Tys. Once the outside agency was alerted, the agency conducted an independent investigation of Tys and found repeated and obvious harassment. Some of the incidents are described in the articles at the end of the post. Despite all of this information already being available to the university, they placed Tys on leave for 18 months while they conducted an internal review. While he was on this leave, he was living with his "girlfriend" who was one of his undergraduate students. This was the period where he seemingly just disappeared if you were one of his students, as all staff were told not to disclose any information to students. (At least some of) Tys' students were informed not to communicate with him if he reached out over facebook or email. During this time he contacted victims. Once the review was complete, the VUB forced Tys to resign. Upon the dismissal, the VUB's official statement was (in Dutch): "In the interest of the rights and privacy of all involved and to allow the healing process to start, modalities were agreed upon in the context of the end of the employment. Therefore, the VUB will exercise the necessary discretion and will not provide any further details or comment on this matter." Tys made his own statement (again in Dutch), that "I have concluded a settlement with the VUB not to communicate about the case. The faculty was in crisis. Jobs had to be lost because of budget cuts. None of my colleagues could go through the same door with each other. And that case is now completely derailed. I've had a hellish year, but now I'm at the bottom." This narrative that it was merely over-staffing in the department would have allowed him to continue his serial intimidation at other institutions and continue have full access and power over students. For this reason, many of his victims that had already been put through such an arduous process went to the press to share their side of the story. In internal meetings after the press flurry addressing the university's secretive culture and chronic lack of response to victims, former rector Caroline Pauwels said that although there is a possibility of a fear culture existing at the VUB, "We cannot have a betrayal culture, because that would be really the thing that I would be very sad about. We cannot live on rumours, heh?" Some articles about it: https://www.demorgen.be/nieuws/vub-zet-prof-aan-de-deur-na-meldingen-van-grensoverschrijdend-gedrag~b48a1ab9/?referrer=https://www.google.com/ https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2023/05/17/getuigenis-vub/ https://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20220128_98068209 https://www.bruzz.be/samenleving/vub-rector-caroline-pauwels-reageert-een-universiteit-geen-rechtbank-2022-01-28 Aftermath: The continuing protests and articles surrounding the issue of sexual harassment at the VUB point to little having changed in the 3 years since they supposedly started taking the complaints about Tys seriously.

Serial VUB Rapist must be allowed to sit exams

https://www.thebulletin.be/expert-sexual-violence-accuses-vub-failing-victims-abuse

After months of fighting and being told their traumas were of no interest or concern to the VUB (even though all the assaults took place on campus and many of them after campus events where free alcohol is provided to students), the university recently made a press release trumpeting their “success” in punishing the rapist and preventing him from causing further physical and mental harm. The measures taken are as follows: -the student is not allowed to drink alcohol on campus

-the student is not allowed to contact his victims

-the student is allowed to sit his exams, but otherwise not allowed on campus

-these measures apply for one academic year

The drunkenness of the rapist was never an issue in the assaults. Therefore him not being allowed to drink on campus has literally nothing to do with the assaults. As for the exams, Heaven forbid that he should be held back a year or have to do retakes after RAPING 15 PEOPLE. It would be so unfair to derail even the tiniest bit the life and career of such a promising young lad. The VUB makes students resit their entire exam if one reference is formatted incorrectly. If suspected of cheating during an exam, a student will be put on immediate probation pending an investigation that may lead to expulsion. 15 counts of rape? Ah, go ahead, sit the exam you scamp.  *********THE VUB IS NOT SAFE***********

“Transgressive behaviour”

Buzz word adopted by the university to mask very clear patterning in the unsuitable behaviour. It is not predation, it is not a lack of a code of conduct for the university staff, it is not lack of reporting resources, it is an amorphous cloud of bad behaviour, how can we tackle that? Yes, we realise women are being assaulted and harrassed, yes we have heard the literal hundreds of stories, but *all* unwanted behaviour is bad, no? We have to focus on professors who are a little bit rude just as much as we have to focus on profs who threaten your career if you don’t blow them. Transgressive behaviour

Structural disbelief

In a recent meeting discussing the culture of secrecy, cover-up and disbelief of students who come forward, the dean of the LW faculty responded with, “Obviously I’ve heard rumours...even in my days [as a student at VUB], I knew that some of the things were not entirely true.”

Kiss the Leader

In one board-created sorority game the first-years/new members get points for each board member they kiss during the party, with triple or quintuple points given depending on the board member’s rank. More action more points?

Party Prof

There is a professor (40s, married, 3 children) who regularly hangs out in the student dorms and attends their parties uninvited, incl. pandemic parties. He’s known to habitually cheat on his wife with students and there is currently one student in particular who he hooks up with. This student is very open about her motivations for these hook ups and they are not purely sexual or romantic.

Atmosphere of secrecy and retaliation

Any conflict that arises at the VUB, the #1 talking point is not to let it leave campus. Don’t talk to the press, don’t tell friends outside the university. Many of the sororities have codes of secrecy where you aren’t allowed to talk about their rituals and “traditions” lest you be kicked out of the club (which is, again, repeatedly emphasised as necessary for any type of career). When students have an issue with power harassment, most staff members are defeatist and reply to issues with, “Well, you can try writing your omnibus, but do you really want to make a thing of this?”  After approaching the administration for help, the students are repeatedly told to trust the system (often for months) and, if they still have the energy to pursue this, are forced to find help outside the VUB hierarchy. The university’s response? They are saddened that the students felt the need for outside help. Moving forward, they would prefer that everything is done in-house so that the two investigations don’t conflict with each other (and the university can control the narrative, not the affected students). All internal meetings regarding harassment are literally labelled as secret and “communication” with the public and with others at the university is always front and center.  There are a number of reasons why this blog is anonymous and wishes to remain so--this is the main one.

Initiation/”Baptism”

All sororities have an initiation procedure. One could argue this is to tear down the sense of self in order to better absorb them into the collective and get them to do what you’d like, but the reader can draw their own conclusion. For one of the sororities, initiates have to walk across and stand on a stage shirtless (see any inequality?) and be rated by the audience. The audience is made up of sorority members past and present. This means that there are always at least a few middle-aged people (men) in the audience as well as adults in their 30s and 20s. The initiates are largely straight out of school and so are 17-18. The immediacy with which they are hit by this makes them think this is 100% an average university experience. They’re just becoming adults, right? Normal adult stuff. And it sets them up perfectly for their education at the VUB...

Twilight Zone

When someone in a sorority tells you a story and you respond with, “Oh, and that was fun, you were comfortable with that?” 100% of the time they respond with, “Well, meh, but everyone else was doing it so it’s OK.” Same wording every time, no matter whether they know each other or belong to different sororities. 

Sorority culture

When you attend the VUB, you are repeatedly told by students and staff that belonging to a sorority/frat is essential to your university life. They provide networking opportunities and are fundamental to deciding where you get a placement or internship and what you are able to specialise in in your post-graduate studies. 

A dick in hand is worth two in the bush?

There is a well-known attendee at certain sorority parties who put his dick in unsuspecting people’s hands as they’re resting by their side. If you’re even thinking of attending a party at this campus, you are warned by multiple people (who laugh as they tell you) not to leave your hand hanging anywhere casually or else you’ll get a penis shoved right in there. Fun story!